PNS | DEHRADUN
The Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress Matadikhar Sanrakshan Samiti has clarified that the Congress party is not questioning the Election Commission of India or the wisdom of the voters but is trying to make the election process more transparent and find out the reasons behind deletion of names of the voters from the voter list.
Interacting with the media at the State headquarters of the Congress on Friday, the members of the Samiti said that during the urban local body elections, the party received complaints from many parts of the State about large scale deletion of names of the voters from the voter list. They said that the article 326 of the Constitution of India clearly states that the elections in the country will be held on the basis of universal adult franchise. Which means that everyone who has completed the age of 18 years has a right to cast his/her vote in the elections.
Giving an example of what the Congress alleges as an irregularity, committee member Abhinav Thapar said that in August 2024, the voter list of Municipal Corporation of Dehradun election had 8.03 lakh voters and the list released in December 2024 had 7.71 lakh voters but the names of 32,000 voters were found missing in the list which was released just three days before the voting. “Now the question arises as to why these names were deleted and how these 32,000 people could have got their names added in just three days,’’ he asked.
He said that the Congress committee will visit all the 100 ULBs of the State where elections were held and will interact with the affected voters. Thapar said that the district and block level committees will launch a campaign on the issue to expose the State government.
Committee member Pankaj Chettri said that there is a clearly laid out process for addition and deletion of names in the voter list. “We will launch a campaign to inform people about the infringement of the right of the people to cast their vote,’’ he said.
The Pradesh Congress Committee president Karan Mahara and the members of the Samiti released a WhatApp number 7452894623 for registering complaints and a poster on the occasion.
